[HN Gopher] The rise and fall of Koo, India's once-thriving Twit...
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       The rise and fall of Koo, India's once-thriving Twitter alternative
        
       Author : vinnyglennon
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2024-06-11 14:58 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
        
       | kapitanjakc wrote:
       | Not saying that what they did is not commendable (in my mind even
       | if you get more than 10 users, your app/site is already great),
       | but ultimately it was a copy. There was nothing original as such.
       | Just an app with Indianised version of a bird sound won't work in
       | the long haul right ?
       | 
       | Also their user base gain was because of controversies, you bring
       | controversial public, they're gonna want that sort of
       | environment.
       | 
       | One more thing worked for them was Nationalism, Indian platform,
       | for Indians, by the Indians type of thing. That also will only
       | take you so far.
       | 
       | I still like the app, it's just that, it's not going to be the
       | "Big thing" that they promised their investors.
        
       | dartos wrote:
       | Never heard of it here in the US, fwiw
        
       | Yawrehto wrote:
       | By the way, they also had an interesting article last year about
       | Koo in Nigeria: restofworld.org/2023/nigeria-koo-twitter-rival-
       | flop/.
        
       | throwtitts wrote:
       | Twitter dies as soon as free money stops. Many internet companies
       | are zombies or even worse
        
       | BhavdeepSethi wrote:
       | Social media in subcontinent is really hard since the ARPU is
       | really low compared to the cost required to sustain that scale.
       | All the existing one prevail because most of their revenue comes
       | from US + EU to balance out additional cost in resources.
        
       | amadeuspagel wrote:
       | People are out of ideas. Twitter but for India. Twitter but not
       | owned Elon Musk. Twitter but integrated with substack. Twitter
       | but federated. Twitter but decentralized. Will any of these do
       | better? Possibly the last two, if someone builts an innovative
       | user experience on top of them.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | Some businesses are good for regulatory arbitrage. Others are
       | good businesses but you can use regulatory arbitrage to get a
       | foothold. This was neither.
       | 
       | The arb was that they had advantages as a local firm willing to
       | play in the niche of providing local governments an advantage.
       | But that's not enough to provide a social network.
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-14 23:01 UTC)